


The chips fall where they're meant to

by madamteatime



Category: Dong Bang Shin Ki
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-26
Updated: 2012-07-26
Packaged: 2017-11-27 02:42:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,072
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/657174
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/madamteatime/pseuds/madamteatime
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Yunho writes a letter to some old friends.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The chips fall where they're meant to

A letter, from Jung Yunho to three people he once knew.  
  
  
 _The memory of you is like an old photograph burnt with the sepia of nostalgia. It’s worn and faded around the edges from being thumbed so often. There are cracks down the middle from where the paper is starting to disintegrate, and the background is an indefinable blob. The five of us are laughing, in this photo of us. It’s a good memory, but it is now nothing more than a relic of a bygone era._  
  
 _I have many good memories of you, most of which have since been tainted by the bad ones. Remembering them now is like picking at a scab – one that’s healing, but still itches from time to time. I try not to think of our past too often. I have spent one year in sorrow and one in anger, and I have no more emotions left to spare on you. But this is not a letter of bitterness and accusations. This is, in fact, a letter of thanks._  
  
 _You robbed me of many things when you left. My confidence, my dignity, my sense of self-worth. Sometimes I wished you’d robbed me of my money instead, because it means far less to me than those other things and you always valued it so highly. But you left me with one thing, and that one thing has come close to erasing your other sins._  
  
 _You left me with a boy, a boy who your neglect helped turn into a man. You cast him aside and he sought comfort in my arms, unaware that the comfort he sought was nothing compared to the amount I found in his. He pieced me back together with the same meticulous care you had used to break me, and he did it for no other reason but that he loved me. He is my soulmate, my other half, and you will never truly understand the meaning of those words because to you they are only a cheap gimmick for commercial use. He is my leader, the leader I never had because I was always too busy leading the rest of you. I never knew the comfort of having someone to depend on and look up to until you left him with no choice but to step up to the task – and oh how he has stepped up. He is the friend that will be beside me even on my deathbed, when you have long since moved on and forgotten each other. He is the light at the end of my tunnel._  
  
 _He is what allows me to forgive you now and wish you only the best. I hope you don’t regret leaving me, but I know that one day you will regret abandoning Changmin, because he has proven himself the strongest of us all and one day you will miss that strength. Thank you for leaving that strength for me to lean on._  
  
 _Thank you for abandoning Changmin. Thank you for stepping aside so I could see the depth of love that existed for me in his eyes, that shy, quiet love that was so easily pushed aside in favour of other distractions. Thank you for forcing us, through your absence, to learn how to talk to one another. It has been the most rewarding learning experience of my life. Thank you for choosing a path that diverged from ours, so I could know what it feels like to walk with only him by my side. And though I know this is giving you more credit than you deserve, because my relationship with Changmin was hardly your priority for leaving, I am grateful regardless._  
  
 _Thank you for Changmin._  
  
  
The door of his study opens just as Yunho is putting his pen down. Footsteps patter across the carpet, and then Changmin hoists himself onto the desk, one foot coming to rest on the arm of Yunho’s chair. He’s wearing skinny jeans and an oversized grey sweater that falls almost to his knees and swallows his lanky frame. His hair is windswept and falling into one eye. He smells like autumn, clean and crisp.  
  
“Who are you writing such an old-fashioned letter to?” he asks, glancing at the page full of Yunho’s careful scrawl. Yunho smiles and folds the letter up.  
  
“Just some old acquaintances,” he says. Changmin’s eyes follow him as he slips the letter into an envelope, his toes wriggling against Yunho’s side.  
  
“Hmm,” he presses his wide, lovely lips together thoughtfully. Changmin hates his lips. Yunho wants to write odes to them that will go down through the centuries. “You didn’t happen to be writing about me, did you?”  
  
Yunho’s smile never falters. “Perhaps,” he says. He has the feeling Changmin knows exactly who he was writing to, in that uncanny way Changmin knows everything about him without needing to be told.  
  
“Only good things, I hope,” Changmin says. He doesn’t actually need to hope – Changmin knows Yunho would never badmouth him to other people.  
  
“As if I would dare say anything otherwise. Your wrath is not something to be underestimated,” Yunho says. Changmin hides a giggle behind his sleeve and Yunho rises to stand between his legs. He ruffles Changmin’s hair and Changmin makes an annoyed sound, hands rising to smooth his hair back down. His pout is so cute Yunho laughs and wraps his arms around him. Changmin tenses for a second, surprised, but then he smiles and hugs back, murmuring happily into Yunho’s shoulder.  
  
“So warm and cuddly,” Changmin coos, unaware of how warm and cuddly he himself is. Yunho brushes his hair aside and drops a kiss on his forehead before pulling away.  
  
“Let’s go out somewhere,” he says.  
  
“But I just got home,” Changmin protests, letting Yunho tug him off the desk and out of the room.  
  
“I’ll buy you that green tea latte you like so much from Starbucks,” Yunho coaxes. Changmin’s eyes glaze over.  
  
“Oh, I do so like their green tea lattes,” he sighs. Yunho wraps a scarf around Changmin’s neck and drags him out of the house.  
  
The letter lies forgotten on his desk. Maybe he’ll send it to its intended recipients. Maybe he won’t. Maybe he’ll show it to Changmin and let it say all the things he’s too shy to verbalise.  
  
It doesn’t really matter – the point of the letter is lost somewhere in the warmth of Changmin’s hand in his.

 

 


End file.
